I Want to be a Soldier
by Hawk-Hotlips
Summary: A Korean American wants to be an American soldier. Rating may change.
1. I Want to Join the Army

1

**I Want to be a Soldier** by Hawk&Hotlips (a.k.a. Hawk-Hotlips)

_A/N: This story came to me in a dream. This is a story I will see through_ _to the end. I don't own MASH except for the characters you don't recognize. Will include some humor giving it the 'humor' genre, but mostly it's dramatic._

A soldier, a soldier is want to be. Not just ANY soldier, I want to be an AMERICAN soldier. My father was an American soldier, in World War I, but he didn't like the fighting. So he deserted to Korea, where he met a Korean woman, Soon-Sung. In a Catholic monastery, they had gotten married only a few months later. Her parents promptly disowned her, and she got pregnant some years later, and had a child, a boy, and that boy is me. They call me Soo-Hung.

After I was born, something was wrong; my mother was waking up. About 2:00 AM that night, she died. She had an aneurism or an ulcer or something and it burst or something when I was born and it killed her.

When I was two, we moved to America. I never learned to speak until a year later. The only language I know is English. I never learned Korean and have trouble living in Korea now. My father went to college, and as a job, he made zippers. At 6:00 A.M., he went to work at the zipper factory until 2:00 P.M. He taught me how to make zippers. I now know everything about zippers and you can ask me anything about them and I will answer correctly. When my father graduated college, he got a degree in carpentry. Then, we moved back to Korea, for 'tax purposes' as my father said.

Originally, my father graduated from college with a teaching degree, and promptly went into the war. So I was home-schooled, because my father knew and saw what Koreans due to Korean-American children here. We both built our hut together. We cut down some local trees, and bought some hay for the roof. We had wood walls, and a wood ceiling, and a hay roof. My dad would also experiment in our hut, he would try new carpentry ideas out and see how we like it, he even put carpet on our ceiling. I would also experiment, it would count as school projects. When I was eight, I installed a zipper in our ceiling, so we could hide in if any bad person came for us. I hid the zipper with a strip of carpet that can split apart when I zip or unzip it.

A year ago, North Koreans were coming for us, and I managed to hide, but my dad was trying to get some of our personal items when they came in. They shot him and he was dead instantly. They never found me, and left a few minutes later. Before they left, they robbed him. Most of our money was taken, and we had forty American dollars left, they were useless to the North Koreans. I put the money in my hideout and buried my father.

That was a year ago. Now I'm eighteen and I'm old enough to go into the American Army. I don't know how much it'll cost if at all so I took what I had left of my money, about $16.00, and set out to the nearest military place, the 4077th MASH unit.

When I got there, they were playing American Football, my dad's and my favorite sport. I didn't want to interrupt them, so I hid in the bushed. I could hear some of their dialogue, and could make out what they were saying.;

The dark haired doctor called out to the skinny, ferret-like man on the sidelines, "Hey, Frank! Why don't you play instead of standing there like a human being?"

"Well, who's going to keep an eye on you Pierce?" replied the ferret.

I couldn't help it, I started to laugh. They stopped, and turned to the bushes. The blond haired woman next to the guy in the fishing hat, whispered something to him, and he, and everyone else, approached the bushes.

As they got closer, the ferret said, "Phhh, it's probably a North Korean."

"Shut up, Frank!" whispered the guy in the hat. Then he said to me, "Alright, come out, we know you're there." I stood up and he asked me. "Well, who are you?"

"My name is Soo-Hung, sir."

"And what do you want?"

I thrust the money to him and said, "I want to join the American Army."

_Well, what do you think? Please review!_


	2. Frank's a Bigot

1"You want to be in the Army? The _American_ Army?" Henry asked, ever so shocked.

"Yes, Sir. I am eighteen years old and eligible to enter into the Army." I said, very pronounced.

"Well, there is one problem with your plan, Buster." said the ferret, who I now know as 'Frank'.

"What's the problem?" I asked, cutely.

Everyone looked kind of uncomfortable when I asked this, everyone except Frank of course.

"Well, your Korean. The American military states that, anyone not a citizen of the United States."

"That's where you're wrong. I've got American citizenship." I shot back.

That's really true, before my dad went to college, he wanted to get the two of us established in America, and we did that for about a year, making it five years I spent in the US. I took my citizenship test, and as soon as I got proof that I became a citizen, we moved back to Korea.

The woman asked me, "Where do you live, Soo-Hung?"

"Just about 100 yards away, ma'am."

"Your eyes are not like everyone else's." Pierce said,

"I'm half-American."

Frank then said the most offensive I ever heard, "That's disgusting!"

"Frank, you are the most bigoted person I've ever met," Pierce said.

"Well, still, it's disgusting to think that our men run around with these...these people."

"Frank, you're a people too."

"Be that as it may, I'm a full-American. So there!" Then he left.

"Come on," the fishing hat guy said, "We'll talk privately in my office."


	3. As Determined as Ever

1On the way over to the hat guy's office, he introduced himself to me as 'Henry', so he 'didn't seem unfriendly' as he said. We stepped into his office, and the persuasion started, from both of us;

"Well," Henry started off, "the first thing I'd like to know, is _why_ you want to join our Army and eventually join friendly, our local neighborhood corner-war?"

"Well, my father was in the Army in World War One, and he used to tell me of all of the heroic stories of his friends and such." I replied, confidently.

"Did he also tell you of the deaths?" Henry asked me.

"Yes, he told me stories about killing the enemy–" I started, but he interrupted;

"He only told you of the enemy dying?" I had no idea what he meant, I mean, I just said that, and I also don't why he said it quietly.

He got out of his chair, and went over to his filing cabinet in the corner. He bent down to the bottom drawer, and reached all the way in the back. He pulled out a horribly bulky file out and brought it back to the table. He set it down, sat down, and asked me;

"Do you know what this is?" Well, how could I? I didn't live here.

"No, Sir," I replied bluntly.

"This is a file," he started off, "of every soldier, man or woman who ever passed through here, wounded." Then he got up again, thought for a moment, and said, "Don't look at that file yet, I have one more file to show you."

He went back to the file cabinet and reached, this time, _behind_ the cabinet and took out a slimmer, but still slightly bulky, file. He also brought this file back to the desk. He set that one down and said to me, after he sat down again;

"And, this is a file of all of the soldiers who came through here, wounded, and then died. Either while here, or recuperating in Tokyo."

"What is this supposed to do?" I asked.

"Well look at the wounded file first."

I did. I saw stuff about; bowel resections, broken bones, heart problems, ulcers, hernias, appendixes, burns, hemorrhages, and lots of things that I didn't know about. I counted thousands of individual files.

"So? I still don't get it."

"Now look at the other file."

I did that also. I saw recounts of deaths, horrid deaths, deaths that were so horrible I almost lost my lunch, as light as it was, nonetheless...but that didn't phase me. I was determined to get into the Army, no matter what.

"I still want to be in the Army." I said.

"Then I'll make some calls later and see what I can do." He said, with an obvious air of saddness.

"You do that." I replied with a smirk.


End file.
